Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

sister and me in her arms and knelt in front of Sima Ting. “Steward,” she said, “I am a widow with a brood of orphaned children, so we will have to rely on you from now on. Children, come bow to your uncle.” All my older sisters knelt in front of Sima Ting, who hit the gong —
bong bong
—with all his might. “Fuck his ancestors!” he cursed, as tears streamed down his face. “It’s all the fault of that bastard Sha Yueliang. His ambush infuriated the Japanese, who went on a murderous rampage against us common people. Get up, girls, all of you, and stop crying. Yours is not the only family that has suffered. Just my luck that the county head put me in charge of this town. He fled for his life, but I’m still here. Fuck his ancestors! Hey there, Gou San, Yao Si, quit your dawdling. Are you waiting for me to send a sedan chair for you?”
    Gou San and Yao Si came running into the yard bent at the waist, followed by some of the town idlers. They were Sima Ting’s errand boys, his honor guard and his followers, his prestige and his authority, the means by which he carried out his duties. Yao Si held a notebook with a ragged-edged straw-paper cover under his arm and had a pencil stuck behind his ear. Gou San strained to roll Shangguan Fulu over, so he could look up into the red morning clouds. He sang out: “Shangguan Fulu — head crushed in — head of the family.” Yao Si wetted a finger, opened the household registration notebook, and thumbed his way through it until he found the Shangguan page. Then he took the pencil from behind his ear, knelt on one knee, and rested his notebook on the other; after touching the tip of his pencil to his tongue, he struck out Shangguan Fulu’s name. “Shangguan Shouxi” — Gou San’s voice suddenly lost its crispness — “head separated from body.” A wail tore from Mother’s throat. Sima Ting turned to Yao Si: “Go ahead, record it, you hear me?” Yao Si drew a small circle over Shangguan Shouxi’s name, without listing the cause of death. Sima Ting raised the mallet in his hand and thumped Yao Si in the head. “Your mother’s legs! How dare you cut corners with the dead, thinking you can take advantage of me because I can’t read, is that it?” With a drawn look on his face, Yao Si pleaded: “Don’t hit me, old master. It’s all right up here.” He pointed to his head. “I’ll not forget any of it, not in a thousand years.” Sima Ting glared at him. “And what makes you think you’ll live that long? A thousand years, you must be some sort of turtle spawn.” “Old master, it was only a figure of speech. Why start a fight?” “Who’s starting a fight?” Sima Ting thumped him on the head again. “Shangguan” — Gou San, who was standing in front of Shangguan Lü, turned to Mother and asked, “What was your mother-in-law’s maiden name?” Mother shook her head. Yao Si tapped the notebook with the tip of his pencil and said, “It was Lü.” “Shangguan nee Lü,” Gou San shouted as he bent down to look at the corpse. “That’s strange, there are no wounds,” he muttered, turning Shangguan Lü’s gray head this way and that. A thin moan escaped from between her lips, straightening Gou San up in a hurry. He backed off, gaping in astonishment and stammering, “She’s come back … back to life.” Shangguan Lü opened her eyes slowly, like a newborn baby, glazed and lacking focus. Mother shouted, “Ma!” She handed me and my eighth sister to two of the older girls and ran up to her mother-in-law, stopping abruptly when she noticed that the old woman’s eyes had settled on me as I lay in First Sister’s arms. “Everyone,” Sima Ting said, “the old woman has returned briefly from death to see the child. Is it a boy?” The gaze in Shangguan Lü’s eyes made me squirm, and I began to cry. “Let her look at her grandchild,” Sima Ting said, “so she can leave us in peace.” Mother took me from First Sister, got down on her knees, and shuffled up to the old woman, where she held me up close to her. “Ma,” she said tearfully, “I had no choice” … A light flashed into Shangguan Lü’s eyes when her gaze alit on that spot between my legs. A rumble emerged from her abdomen, followed by a rank odor. “That’s it,” Sima Ting said, “this time she’s really gone.” Mother stood up with me in her arms and, in front of a crowd of men, opened her blouse and stuffed a nipple into my mouth. With my face nestled